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At Lethbridge College, we understand how important it is to have support for students who are embarking on their post-secondary journey. Often, that support can come in the form of parents and partners; you play a large supporting role in your student’s academic success.

Family Orientation

Lethbridge College offers Family Orientation each year to provide guidance for family members to support their students through the growth and opportunities they will face during their college years. A strong support system is crucial to promoting student success – and during Family Orientation, parents and partners can hear about a variety of college services and how to support their student throughout their post-secondary experience at Lethbridge College.

The basics

Lethbridge College is more than just a place for students to attend classes and prepare for a career. We’re a campus community dedicated to supporting our students. Instructors will know your student by name.

Support services

Of course, our support goes beyond friendly faces and warm smiles; we have a host of departments committed to helping students with every aspect of their academic and personal lives. These departments include such areas as:

Important dates

There are several days each semester that may coincide with higher levels of stress in your student’s life. These are good times to talk with your loved one about school and how things are going. It’s also a good time to remind your student of the available support on campus.

Tuition fee deadline: Tuition is due six business days in terms longer than eight weeks (three business days in shorter terms). If tuition and fees have not been paid in full by this deadline, students are dropped from their classes.

Add/drop period: Students may add or drop individual credit courses at the beginning of their term with full tuition refund and no entry on their academic transcript.

Extended drop period: Students may drop individual credit courses during the extended drop period without any academic record of their enrolment and with a partial refund.

Allowable withdrawal period: Students withdrawing from courses after the extended drop period are given a “W” grade. There is no tuition refund for withdrawing from a course during the allowable withdrawal period.

Assignments and tests: Throughout each semester, your student may have various course assignments, projects and exams. A course outline with these deadlines is distributed at the beginning of the course.

Final exam period: Following the last day of classes, the final exam period lasts a week in terms of eight weeks or more and a couple days in shorter terms. During this time, your student may be busy studying, writing final exams and finishing up any final assignments or projects.

Student Health and Dental plan opt in/opt out deadline: Any student who is taking nine credits or more is automatically enrolled in the plan. Students can ONLY opt out of the plan each year before the deadline of the semester in which they start. Get the complete details on the LCSA website.

Finances

Our Student Awards and Financial Aid office strives to help students understand their finances and make college accessible. They have an online budgeting tool to help students know how much their program will cost and where the money to pay for it could come from. Developing a budget and sticking to it can be difficult, but with our tools and your support, your student will fall into a healthy habit.

They also have great information on awards and scholarships as well as student loans. By filling out just one online application, your student is entered into the running for all eligible Lethbridge College awards.

Supporting your student’s success

It is important for our students to tackle some tough challenges on their own – but having a great support system of parents, partners and friends allows them to share their successes with those closest to them and to not feel alone during the hard moments.

Your student needs your support and involvement to help reach his/her goals. And a great way to show that support is by becoming familiar with campus resources, support services and the Student Rights and Code of Conduct policy. It is important for your student to understand and expect that there is a difference between previous life and education experiences and the college experience.

Know how your student is doing

The best way to know how your student is doing is to ask them.

Here are a few things you should know about college and courses so you can ask targeted questions.

Course credit: It is expected that a student will have to study and complete assignments for twice the hours they are in class. If your student has 15 hours of scheduled class time a week, you can expect him/her to spend 30 hours a week studying. If you see or hear about your student spending less time studying, you may want to talk to him/her.

Program choice: Several new students struggle with their program choice in the first year, but are often too embarrassed to discuss this with family for fear of being viewed as a failure. As a family, you should be having open and honest discussions about your student’s program to determine if it’s really the career your student wants.

Course outline: Every class distributes a package at the beginning of the course outlining assignments and exams and when they are due, recommended texts and expected learning outcomes. Your student can access their grades through their instructors, online or by calculating their marks on returned assignments. Students should have at least a third of their final grade by the last day to withdraw, usually in November for the fall term and March for the winter term. Your student should know where they stand and be able to communicate that to you.

Grading policy: Students should have an understanding of how they will be assessed. Each class may be graded differently so students should be familiar with the grading chart for their class. For example, some programs require higher than 50 per cent to pass. Find out more about our grading policy.

Attend career and academic advising appointments

Students can bring anyone they like to their career and academic advising appointments. In many cases, it helps your student if you are there. A lot of information is covered in an initial appointment and sometimes two pairs of ears are better than one.

Students may meet with a career and academic advisor if they have questions regarding academic planning, supports for students, program options, and college policies and practices, including:

admissions

graduation

transfers

program outcomes

Career and academic advisors are post-secondary professionals whose primary goal is to support prospective and current students in reaching their academic goals.